And so that resolved that the farming of the tenth should always be put up to auction according to the law of Hiero, in order that the discharge of that office might be the more agreeable if, though the supreme power was changed, still, not only the laws of that king who was very dear to the Sicilians, but his name also remained in force among them. This law the Sicilians always used before Verres was praetor. He first dared to root up and alter the established usages of them all, their customs which had been handed down to them from their ancestors, the conditions of their friendship with us, and the rights secured to them by our alliance.

And in this, this is the first thing I object to and accuse you for, that in a custom of such long standing, and so thoroughly established, you made any innovation at all. Have you ever gained anything by this genius of yours? Were you superior in prudence and wisdom to so many wise and illustrious men who governed that province before you? That is your renown; this praise is due to your genius and diligence. I admit and grant this to you. I do know that, at Rome, when you were praetor, you did transfer by your edict the possession of inheritance from the children to strangers, from the first heirs to the second, from the laws to your own licentious covetousness. I do know that you corrected the edicts of all your predecessors, and gave possession of inheritance not according to the evidence of those who produced the will, but according to theirs who said that a will had been made. And I do know too that those new practices, first brought forward and invented by you, were a very great profit to you. I recollect, moreover, that you also abrogated and altered the laws of the censors about the keeping the public buildings in repair; so that he might not take the contract to whom the care of the building belonged; so that his guardians and relations might not consult the advantage, of their ward so as to prevent his being stripped of all his property; that you appointed a very limited time for the work, in order to exclude others from the business; but that with respect to the contractor you favoured, you did not observe any fixed time at all.

So that I do not marvel at your having established a new law in the matter of the tenths you, a man so wise, so thoroughly practiced in praetorian edicts and censorian laws. I do not wonder, I say, at your having invented something; but I do blame you, I do impeach you, for having of your own accord, without any command from the people, without the authority of the senate, changed the laws of the province of Sicily.

The senate permitted Lucius Octavius and Caius Cotta, the consuls, to put up to auction at Rome the tenths of wine, and oil, and of pulse, which before your time the quaestors had been in the habit of putting up in Sicily; and to establish any law with respect to those articles which they might think fit. When the contract was offered for sale, the farmers begged them to add some clauses to the law, and yet not to depart from the other laws of the censors. A man opposed this, who by accident was at Rome at that time; your host,—your host, and intimate friend, I say, O Verres,—Sthenius, of Thermae, who is here present The consuls examined into the matter. When they had summoned many of the principal and most honourable men of the state to form a council on the subject; according to the opinion of that council they gave notice that they should put the tenths up to auction according to the law of Hiero.

Was it not so? Men of the greatest wisdom, invested with the supreme authority, to whom the senate had given the whole power of making laws respecting the letting out the farming of the tributes, (and this power had been ratified by the people, while only one Sicilian objected to it,) would not alter the name of the law of Hiero, even when the measure would have been accompanied by an augmentation of the revenue; but you, a man of no wisdom, of no authority, without any order from people or senate, while all Sicily objected, abrogated the whole law of Hiero, to the greatest injury and even destruction of the revenue.

But what law is this, O judges, which he amends, or rather totally abrogates? A law framed with the greatest acuteness and the greatest diligence, which gives up the cultivator of the land to the collector of the tenths, guarded by so many securities, that neither in the corn fields, nor on the threshing floors, nor in the barns, nor while removing his corn privately, nor while carrying it away openly, can the cultivator defraud the collector of one single grain without the severest punishment. The law has been framed with such care, that it is plain that a man framed it who had no other revenues; with such acuteness that it was plain that he was a Sicilian; with such severity, that he was evidently a tyrant: by this law, however, cultivating the land was an advantageous trade for the Sicilian; for the laws for the collectors of the tenths were also drawn up so carefully that it is not possible for more than the tenth to be extorted from the cultivator against his will.

And though all these things were settled in this way, after so many years and even ages, Verres was found not only to change, but entirely to overturn them, and to convert to purposes of his own most infamous profit those regulations which had long ago been instituted and established for the safety of the allies and the benefit of the republic. In the first instance he appointed certain men, collectors of the tenths in name, in reality the ministers and satellites of his desires; by whom I will show that the province was for three years so harassed and plundered, O judges, that it will take many years and a long series of wise and incorruptible governors to recover it.

The chief of all those who were called collectors, was Quintus Apronius, that man whom you see in court, concerning whose extraordinary wickedness you have heard the complaints of most influential deputations. Look, O judges, at the face and countenance of the man; and from that obstinacy which he retains now in the most desperate circumstances, you may imagine and recollect what his arrogance must have been in Sicily. This Apronius is the man whom Verres (though he had collected together the most infamous men from all quarters, and though he had taken with him no small number of men like himself in worthlessness, licentiousness, and audacity,) still considered most like himself of any man in the whole province. And so in a very short time they became intimate, not because of interest, nor of reason, nor of any introduction from mutual friends, but from the baseness and similarity of their pursuits.

You know the depraved and licentious habits of Verres. Imagine to yourselves, if you can, any one who can be in every respect equal to him in the wicked and dissolute commission of every crimes that man will be Apronius; who, as he shows not only by his life, but by his person and countenance, is a vast gulf and whirlpool of every sort of vice and infamy. Him did Verres employ as his chief agent in all his adulteries, in all his plundering of temples, in all his debauched banquets; and the similarity of their manners caused such a friendship and unanimity between them, that Apronius, whom every one else thought a boor and a barbarian, appeared to him alone an agreeable and an accomplished man; that, though every one else hated him, and could not bear the sight of him, Verres could not bear to be away from him; that, though others shunned even the banquets at which Apronius was to be presents Verres used the same cup with him; lastly, that, though the odour of Apronius's breath and person is such that even, as one may say, the beasts cannot endure him, he appeared to Verres alone sweet and pleasant. He sat next to him on the judgment-seat; he was alone with him in his chamber; he was at the head of his table at his banquets; and especially then, when he began to dance at the feast naked, while the young son of the praetor was sitting by.

This man, as I began to say, Verres selected for his principal agent in distressing and plundering the fortunes of the cultivators of the land. To this man's audacity, and wickedness, and cruelty, our most faithful allies and most virtuous citizens were given up, O judges, by this praetor, and were placed at his mercy by new regulations and new edicts, the entire law of Hiero, as I said before, having been rejected and repudiated.

First of all, listen, O judges, to his splendid edict. “Whatever amount of tithe the collector declared that the cultivator ought to pay, that amount the cultivator should be compelled to pay to the collector.”—How? Let him pay as much as Apronius demands? What is this? is the regulation of a praetor for allies, or the edict and command of an insane tyrant to conquered enemies? Am I to give as much as he demands? He will demand every grain that I can get out of my land. Am I to give all? Yes, and more too, if he chooses. What, then, am I to do? What do you think? You must either pay, or you will be convicted of having disobeyed the edict. O ye immortal gods, what a state of things is this For it is hardly credible. And indeed.

I am persuaded, O judges, that, though you should think that all other vices are met in this man, still this must seem false to you. For I myself, though all Sicily told me of it, still should not dare to affirm this to you, if I was not able to recite to you these edicts from his own documents in those very words—as I will do. Give this, I pray you, to the clerk; he shall read from the register. Read the edict about the returns of property. [The edict about the returns of property is read.] He says I am not reading the whole. For that is what he seems to intimate by shaking his head. What am I passing over? is it that part where you take care of the interests of the Sicilians, and show regard for the miserable cultivators? For you announce in your edict, that you will condemn the collector in eightfold damages, if he has taken more than was due to him. I do not wish anything to be passed over. Read this also which he requires; read every word. [The edict about the eightfold damages is read.] Does this mean that the cultivator is to prosecute the collector at law? It is a miserable and unjust thing for men to be brought from the country into the forum, from the plough to the courts of justice; from habits of rustic life to actions and trials to which they are wholly unaccustomed.

When in all the other countries liable to tribute, of Asia, of Macedonia, of Spain, of Gaul, of Africa, of Sicily, and in those parts of Italy also which are so liable; when in all these, I say, the farmer in every case has a right to claim and a power to distrain, but not to seize and take possession without the interference of the law, you established regulations respecting the most virtuous and honest and honourable class of men,—that is, respecting the cultivators of the soil,—which are contrary to all other laws. Which is the most just, for the collector to have to make his claim, or for the cultivator to have to recover what has been unlawfully seized? for them to go to trial when things are in their original state, or when one side is ruined? for him to be in possession of the property who has acquired it by hard labour, or him who has obtained it by bidding for it at an auction? What more? They who cultivate single acres, who never cease from personal labour, of which class there were a great number, and a vast multitude among the Sicilians before you came as praetor,—what are they to do? When they have given to Apronius all he has demanded, are they to leave their allotments? to leave their own household gods? to come to Syracuse, in order while you, forsooth, are praetor, to prosecute, by the equal law which they will find there, Apronius, the delight and joy of your life, in a suit for recovery of their property?

But so be it. Some fearless and experienced cultivator will be found, who, when he has paid the collector as much as he says is due, will seek to recover it by course of law, and will sue for the eightfold penalty. I look for the vigour of the edict, for the impartiality of the praetor; I espouse the cause of the cultivator; I wish to see Apronius condemned in the eightfold penalty. What now does the cultivator demand? Nothing but sentence for an eightfold penalty, according to the edict. What says Apronius? He is unable to object. What says the praetor? He bids him challenge the judges. Let us, says he, make out the decuries. What decuries? Those from my retinue; you will challenge the others. What? of what men is that retinue composed? Of Volusius the soothsayer, and Cornelius the physician, and the other dogs whom you see licking up the crumbs about my judgment-seat. For he never appointed any judge or recuperator The recuperatores were a kind of judges, usually appointed by the praetors in some particular kinds of action, and especially in those relating to money. from the proper body. The Latin word here is conventus, which often occurs in these orations; properly it means any assembly of men, but when the Romans had reduced foreign countries into the form of provinces, it assumed a nave definite meaning. Sometimes it was applied to the whole body of Roman citizens who were either permanently or temporarily settled in a province. Also in order to facilitate the administration of justice, a province was divided into a number of districts, each of which was called conventus... Roman citizens living in a province, at certain times of the year, fixed by the proconsul, assembled in the chief town of the district, and this meeting bore the name of conventus. At this conventus litigant, parties applied to the proconsul, who selected a number of judges from the conventus to try their causes. The proconsul himself presided at the trial, and pronounced the sentence according to the views of the judges who were his assessors.—Smith, Dict. Ant in v. Conventus. He said all men who possessed one clod of earth were unfairly prejudiced against the collectors. People had to sue Apronius before these men who had not yet got rid of the surfeit from his last banquet. What a splendid and memorable court! what an impartial decision! what a safe resource for the cultivators of the soil!

And that you may understand what sort of decisions are obtained in actions for the eightfold penalty, and what sort of judges those selected from that man's retinue are considered to be, listen to this. Do you think that any collector, when this licence was allowed him of taking from the cultivator whatever he claimed, ever did demand more than was due? Consider yourselves in your own minds, whether you think any one ever did so, especially when it might have happened, not solely through covetousness, but even though ignorance. Many must have done so. But I say that all extorted more, and a great deal more, than the proper tenths. Tell me of one man, in the whole three years of your praetorship, who was condemned in the eightfold penalty. Condemned, indeed! Tell me of one man who was ever prosecuted according to your edict. There was not, in fact, one cultivator who was able to complain that injustice had been done to him; not one collector who claimed one grain more as due to him than really was due. Far from that. Apronius seized and carried off whatever he chose from every one. In every district the cultivators, harassed and plundered as they were, were complaining, and yet no instance of a trial can be found.

Why is this? Why did so many bold, honourable, and highly esteemed men—so many Sicilians, so many Roman knights—when injured by one most worthless and infamous man, not seek to recover the eightfold penalty, which had most unquestionably been incurred? What is the cause, what is the reason? That reason alone, O judges, which you see,—because they knew they should come off at the trial defrauded and ridiculed. In truth, what sort of triad must that be, when three of the profligate and abandoned retinue of Verres sat on the tribunal under the name of judges?—slaves of Verres, not inherited by him from his father, but recommended to him by his mistress.

The cultivator, forsooth, might plead his cause; he might show that no corn was left him by Apronius,—that even his other property was seized; that he himself had been driven away with blows. Those admirable men would lay their heads together, they would chat to one another about revels and harlots, if they could catch any when leaving the praetor. The cause would seem to be properly heard: Apronius would have risen, full of his new dignity as a knight; not like a collector all over dirt and dust, but reeking with perfumes, languid with the lateness of the last night's drinking party, with his first motion, and with his breath he would have filled the whole place with the odour of wine, of perfume, and of his person. He would have said, what he repeatedly has said, that he had bought, not the tenths, but the property and fortunes of the cultivators; that he, Apronius, was not a collector, but a second Verres,—the absolute lord and master of those men. And when he had said this, those admirable men of Verres's train, the judges, would deliberate, not about acquitting Apronius, but they would inquire how they could condemn the cultivator himself to pay damages to Apronius.

When you had granted this licence for plundering the cultivators to the collectors of the tenths,—that is, to Apronius,—by allowing him to demand as much as he chose, and to carry off as much as he demanded, were you preparing this defence for your trial,—that you had promised by edict that you would assign judges in a trial for an eightfold penalty? Even if in truth you were to give power to the cultivator, not only to challenge his judges, but even to pick them out of the whole body of the Syracusan assembly, (a body of most eminent and honourable men,) still no one could bear this new sort of injustice,—that, when one has given up the whole of one's produce to the farmer, and had one's property taken out of one's hands, then one is to endeavour to recover one's property and to seek its restitution by legal proceedings.

But when what is granted by the edict is, in name indeed, a trial, but in reality a collusion of your attendants, most worthless men, with the collectors, who are your partners, and besides that, with the judges, do you still dare to mention that trial, especially when what you say is refuted, not merely by my speech, but by the facts themselves? when in all the distresses of the cultivators of the soil, and all the injustice of the collectors, not only has no trial ever taken place according to that splendid edict, but none has ever been so much as demanded?

However, he will be more favourable to the cultivators than he appears; for the same man who has announced in his edict that he will allow a trial against the collectors, in which they shall be liable to an eightfold penalty, had it also set down in his edict, that he would grant a similar trial against the cultivators, in which they should be liable to a fourfold penalty. Who now dares to say that this man was unfavourably disposed or hostile to the cultivators? How much more lenient is he to them than to the collectors? He has ordered in his edict that the Sicilian magistrate should exact from the cultivator whatever the collector declared ought to be paid to him. What sentence has he left behind, which can be pronounced against a cultivator of the soil It is not a bad thing, says he, for that fear to exist; so that, when the money has been exacted from the cultivator, still there will be behind a fear of the court of justice, to prevent him from stirring himself. If you wish to exact money from me by process of law, remove the Sicilian magistrate. If you employ this violence, what need is there of a process of law? Moreover, who will there be who would not prefer paying to your collectors what they demand, to being condemned in four times the amount by your attendants.